Mastering AP Textbook Reading & Test Strategy

1. How to read an AP textbook How to read an AP Textbook (or any for that matter) • Textbooks are NOT pleasure reading. Textbooks don’t read like a novel, so it’s more difficult to get through. They are designed for fast reading and organization. While the APUSH book is fairly well written, it’s still a college-level textbook! • With this in mind, tackle your reading assignments. Look for any headings, usually in bold or different colors than the rest of the book, and make sure to spend time on these small sections. They usually give key information. • Chunk the information – this means that you should focus on chunks of material at a time, like paragraphs, and then jot down the important information from that section. Chunking is really effective because the notes don’t seem as overwhelming this way. • If you are having trouble understanding the material try summarizing each section of the book in YOUR own words. That will help your mind grasp the material. Emphasize in your notes what you don’t understand and ask about it later! • Actually READ the book! Students from past years have said in great numbers that this truly helps!!! If you want to do well in this class, you MUST read! This will be for your homework too! • These tips work for college too!

2. The AP Test The AP Test • The test is May 8, morning session. • Cost is $94 (this might change, but I’ll let you know if it does). • You’ll most likely take the test in the gym. • There are 55 multiple choice questions, and you’ll have 55 minutes to do them. • There will be 3 short answer questions (SAQs) on the test and you’ll have 40 minutes to complete them. • There is one DBQ (document based question) with only one prompt (question). You will be given 7 documents and you must write the essay in 60 minutes. Don’t worry – we’ll practice these a lot! • There is one long essay. You will have three prompts to choose from and you’ll have 40 minutes to write the essay. • The multiple choice portion is worth 40% and the written portion is worth 60%. Specifically, the SAQs are worth 20%, the DBQ 25%, and the long essay 15%. • You may earn the following scores on the test: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 3 and up is passing. Generally speaking, most colleges only accept a 4 or 5 to receive college credit. Some colleges do accept a score of 3. • Colleges frown not only on taking an AP class and not taking the test, but also on failing the AP test! So keep that in mind!

3. Notebooks for APUSH These are seriously your life. EVERYTHING in this class will go into these two notebooks. They both must be a 5 subject, college ruled, spiral notebook. The ones with pockets are preferable. You may NOT use a three-ring binder. The bigger (more paper) the better as we will use these the entire year. Get COLLEGE-RULED!

4. On the front, put CLEARLY and in BIG LETTERS: • Your name. • Your period. • Label one of them “APUSH NOTES” and the other one “APUSH CLASS WORK” APUSH NOTES Joe Schmo Period 1 APUSH CLASS WORK Joe Schmo Period 1

5. In both notebooks, use some sort of sticky tab to separate your chapters. • I’ll check your notebooks when you do test corrections and I need to be able to find everything quickly. • Choose sticky tabs that you can write on so you can clearly label each chapter. • You will put a labeled sticky tab for the BEGINNING of each chapter • No sticky tab = NO TEST CORRECTIONS

6. You will use the tabs for BOTH notebooks. • If you lose your notebook, it is up to you to replace everything that was lost. You are still responsible for all the work in your notebook so don’t lose it! • Also remember, NOTHING else should be in these notebooks. They’re exclusively for APUSH. So your notes shouldn’t have math in it and your class work notebook shouldn’t have AP Bio stuff in there. They are ONLY for APUSH.

7. How to do Homework and Take Notes in APUSH There is a very specific way to take notes in APUSH. Your homework notes are very important. While I’m not giving a grade for them, they’re the foundation for all your information in this class. Ultimately, the whole point is to see the information twice in a short period of time and then, hopefully, remember it better. **Remember – the better notes you take for homework, the better you’ll do on practice tests (you get to use them and all other work in class on the practice tests!) and regular tests AND you’ll have an excellent set of notes for when you start studying for the AP test. Take good notes now and you’ll thank yourself later.

8. There are specific steps you must follow to receive credit: • You will start your homework on a new page for every chapter and for every night’s homework. • On the upper right hand corner of the start of that night’s notes, you need to put the following: unit number of the notes, chapter number of the notes, which part of the notes it is, AND the page numbers assigned. PUT IT EVERY TIME YOU START A NEW HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT. • Key terms are people/events/things you should definitely include in your notes somewhere among other stuff. Find them! They’re usually VERY important. • Remember – the more you put into this class, the more you’ll get out of it. So actually take your time and find/define the words in your notes and DON’T BE LAZY. • I’m not going to directly be looking at the key terms but you may want to put them somewhere handy in your notes so you can easily study them later Or, highlight them, underline, whatever so you can spot them easily.

9. You must READ the book to take these notes. They will not be effective if you cheat and copy them from someone or somewhere else. If you are concentrating and focusing, they should not take you that long and they’ll help you in the long run. • You MUST do your homework notes in pen. There is not a specific color requirement but they all must be the same color throughout the homework. • You may take your notes however you’d like. BUT, to receive credit and a stamp, you must have at least 1 page front and back and AT MOST 2 pages front and back. Just defining the key terms and putting them down will NOT count as your notes length requirement. You need to take comprehensive notes and not just list words You may NOT take more notes than two pages front and back per night. The idea is that you learn how to summarize the information and write down the important stuff. • Don’t worry – if you miss anything, you’ll get it in class. We’ll get to that in a minute.

10. While taking your notes for homework, leave room somewhere, somehow. This all depends on your style. You may want to use Cornell style, or skip lines, or whatever. You have to leave room though because the other half of your homework grade comes from the class notes. • So to summarize the homework: • Unit number, chapter number, which part of the chapter it is, and page numbers on the upper right hand corner whenever you start a new homework assignment. • Start a new chapter and a new night’s homework on a new page. • Make sure to include the key terms in your notes somewhere and make then easy to find. • Homework must be done all in one color pen. No pencil and no multiple colors. • Homework must be at least 1 page front and back and at most 2 pages front and back.

11. Notebooks are not checked until you need to do test corrections. If you wait until the last minute, you’ll have tons of work and not be successful! We’ll be going over the importance of doing notes in a minute. • Now for the class notes. Using a DIFFERENT pen color from the one you used for homework, you’ll take notes. No pencils. You may only take class notes within the space you have used for homework. You can’t write more and go onto another page. • This is where it’s critical that you plan out your homework well. You have to fit it onto the required space but also leave space for class notes. • You have to show that you’re adding to your homework notes. The different color of pen will do that so fill in information, underline, circle, whatever. When I check your notebooks, all of your notes should be completely filled with two different colors.

12. A few things to remember: You may use the back of the paper in your notebook. The back of a paper can count as a new page if you want to start there. Nothing else should be in your notebooks. Your homework/notes notebook should only have APUSH notes in there. Nothing else. Period. You need to use one color pen for the homework notes and a different color for the notes in class. No pencils. Any color works (even pink!)

13. Unit 1 Chapter 1 Part 1 Pages 2-14 Key terms: Key term #1: explanation Key term #2: explanation II. Peopling the Americas There is controversial evidence that the earliest Americans arrived here up to 35,000 years ago, using the frozen oceans to travel by land and by boat (stuff you would add from class notes) About 10,000 years ago when the Ice Age ended, the land bridge was swallowed up and pretty much no more humans came to the Americas until thousands of years later, leaving the humans here isolated for the most part (stuff you would add from class notes) By the time the Europeans came to America, it is suggested that 54 million people inhabited the land, but this number is debated The Incas in Peru, the Mayans in Central America and the Aztecs in Mexico developed very sophisticated civilizations (more stuff from class notes) Lots of stuff from class notes

14. II. Peopling the Americas There is controversial evidence that the earliest Americans arrived here up to 35,000 years ago, using the frozen oceans to travel by land and by boat (stuff you would add from class notes) About 10,000 years ago when the Ice Age ended, the land bridge was swallowed up and pretty much no more humans came to the Americas until thousands of years later, leaving the humans here isolated for the most part (stuff you would add from class notes) By the time the Europeans came to America, it is suggested that 54 million people inhabited the land, but this number is debated The Incas in Peru, the Mayans in Central America and the Aztecs in Mexico developed very sophisticated civilizations (more stuff from class notes) Lots of stuff from class notes More homework notes… more homework notes…More homework notes… more homework notes… more class notes, more class notes

15. II. Peopling the Americas There is controversial evidence that the earliest Americans arrived here up to 35,000 years ago, using the frozen oceans to travel by land and by boat (stuff you would add from class notes) About 10,000 years ago when the Ice Age ended, the land bridge was swallowed up and pretty much no more humans came to the Americas until thousands of years later, leaving the humans here isolated for the most part (stuff you would add from class notes)

16. Why do homework?? So for some of you with selective hearing, you’ve heard “homework isn’t graded” and are thinking, “Cool, I won’t ever do it!” This is a BAD idea for a few reasons. • You CANNOT do any of the practice test corrections if you’re missing more than 1 assignment. • You have a chance to make up missing assignments, but that cuts into the time you have to make test corrections AND it will pile on more work for you. • You get to use your homework notes, class notes, and class work on your practice tests! The better job you do on these, the better you’ll score on your practice tests and won’t have to worry about making anything up. • The students who will score better on regular tests will be those who keep up with their homework.

17. How to take EFFECTIVE notes in a college-level class Unfortunately, many students enter AP classes having NO CLUE how to take effective notes that will help them to learn the material. Here is what I’ve seen over the years from students: • Lists of information • Copied passages/sentences from textbooks • Rambling messes • Short sentences with no connections • Too much information Does any of this sound like what you do? Do you do this because you’re lazy or because you don’t know how to do the notes? Here are some tips to help you.

18. How to take EFFECTIVE notes from a textbook (tips come from MIT) • Get an overview first – read any beginning introductory stuff and any summaries to help you know what the overall chapter is about. • Make a note of section titles and mark those down. You will flesh out the information later. • Look for BIG IDEAS – these are marked many times. Jot them down and explain them. • Look for visual clues – bullet points, stars, bold words, italicized words, and more. These all usually show that something is important and you should know it. Take notice of them and take notes accordingly. • Look for any repeated information – this definitely is important stuff to jot it down! • Paraphrase all of your information instead of copying; you learn better that way. • If you use abbreviations, do so consistently. • Use a consistent, organized style for taking notes. • Leave room for notes in class.

19. More helpful tips: • Do NOT copy verbatim (exactly) the information in the textbook. This does not help retention rate or learning at all! It’s just copying. • Do NOT put words in your notes you don’t know – look them up, always. Dictionary.com has an app you can use and it’s fast. • Do NOT put ideas in your notes you don’t know. Writing down information on the Gilded Age without really understanding it won’t help. Read it again and get the gist of it before putting it down. • Do NOT try to rush through your notes. You don’t learn if you rush. • Do NOT copy someone else’s notes. Again, you won’t learn! • Generally speaking, the amount of time needed for the homework assignments is the amount of pages multiplied by 5 minutes. So if you’re given 10 pages of notes, you’re going to take about 50 minutes to an hour. If you taking much more than that, you should speed up because you’re probably dwelling on subjects for too long.

20. How to take EFFECTIVE notes during LECTURE Once again, I have noticed students really struggle taking notes in class. I have been told “I can’t write and listen at the same time.” Well, you MUST have that skill in college! Here’s what I’ve seen students doing: • Writing EXACTLY what’s on the PowerPoint • Not listening to what I’m saying • Listening to what I’m saying but not writing down key information (bad if you have a poor memory!) • Writing down random stuff from the lecture that makes no sense when you read over it again Sound like you again? More tips!

21. How to take EFFECTIVE notes during LECTURE (tips from Dartmouth College) • Don’t write down everything see and/or hear – write down key points and ideas. • Notes should consist of key words or short sentences. • Think about your notes before writing them – don’t take notes just to be taking notes! • Keep your notes short and to the point (to where you can still understand them quickly). If you write too much, you’ll overwhelm yourself and lose the meaning. • Don’t worry about missing a point – you can always add later. • Keep notes neat and uniform. • Later on that day or evening, go back and review your notes. We forget very quickly and you need to review. • Review regularly! That’s the best way to remember information.

22. How to LISTEN effectively (from Dartmouth) • Determine why you are listening to a speaker. Seriously! If you believe it’s unimportant to listen to a lecture, you won’t learn. If you believe you need to know the material, you’re more apt to learn it and remember it. • Learning is up to the learner. If you sit passively and do poorly on the tests, then it’s your fault and not the lecturer’s. You’re not a serious learner if you continue to blame others for your failures. • If you can’t hear, move! • Listen to the speaker before rejecting his/her ideas. Many students will not listen solely for the reason of not liking the speaker. This sets up students for failure. • Listen for the main ideas of the lecture and focus on those when taking notes. • Even auditory learners need some help with remembering, so make sure to jot down notes from what the speaker is saying and not just from PowerPoints or handouts.

23. Homework Notes example: The First Americans Archaeologists believe that migrants from Asia crossed a 100-mile-wide land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age sometime between 13,000 and 3000 B.C. and thus became the first Americans. The first wave of this migratory stream from Asia lasted from about fifteen thousand to nine thousand years ago. Then the glaciers melted, and the rising ocean submerged the land bridge beneath the Bering Strait (Map 1.1). Around eight thousand years ago, a second movement of peoples, traveling by water across the same narrow strait, brought the ancestors of the Navajos and the Apaches to North America. The forebears of the Aleut and Inuit peoples, the “Eskimos,” came in a third wave around five thousand years ago. Then, for three hundred generations, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere were largely cut off from the rest of the world.

24. The First Americans – Student #1 • Migrants from Asia crossed a 100-mile-wide land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska sometime between 13,000 and 3000 B.C. and became the first Americans • The first wave of this stream from Asia lasted from about fifteen thousand to nine thousand years ago. • Then the glaciers melted, and the rising ocean submerged the land bridge beneath the Bering Strait. • Around eight thousand years ago, a second movement of peoples, brought the ancestors of the Navajos and the Apaches to North America. • The forebears of the Aleut and Inuit peoples, the “Eskimos,” came in a third wave around five thousand years ago. • Then, for three hundred generations, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere were largely cut off from the rest of the world.

25. The First Americans – Student #2 • First “Americans” came to North American about 13k-3k B.C. using the Bering Strait (from Russia to Alaska) • Glaciers melted, ended this migration about 9000 years ago • More people then traveled by water, bringing the ancestors of tribes (Navajo, Apache) • About 5k years ago, the ancestors of the Eskimos (Aleut, Inuit) came • After that, these peoples were cut off (mostly) from the rest of the world

26. The First Americans – Student #3 • First “Americans” came over using Bering Strait • Later, ancestors of modern tribes (Navajo, Apache, Aleut, Inuit) came over using water • After about 5k years ago, these peoples were cut off from world • **Started growth of multiculturalism in the Americas as these tribes spread w/ no outside influence